This Is Who I Am
by SpunkiSpirou
Summary: I've been here so long I've practically been forgotten. They started putting kids in here for punishment. It's wrong and they shouldn't be here. Even though some of them deserve what they get, others don't. - A side story to Behind Bars.
1. Prologue

**SpunkiSpirou:** In the original it wasn't explained what was going on with Shadow. Hopefully this will help to shed some light on that. ChallengeFic.

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Prison.

What do you want a descriptive dialogue about the place? That's it. It's a prison. There is nothing to it.

We have small rooms with bars on the windows to stop us from getting out. Three meals a day. A shower room. Visiting hours.

Most of the inmates here had visitors, as for me, I never had any.

Hmph. Who would want to visit me? I'd been in this damn hell hole longer than the wardens had been alive and breathing.

Forgotten over time.

But I hadn't lost my mind.

I knew everything about this place.

It was filled with criminals of rape and slaughter crimes, that enjoyed nothing more than tearing each other apart. Of course they never bothered me. They knew what I was capable of.

I was considered to be highly dangerous, and although I was labelled as such they didn't give me any special treatment. No solitary confinement, nothing.

Personally I think they enjoyed watching us go all out on each other. I must admit I did enjoy watching the odd bust up go down.

Or at least I did until they started putting kids into here.

This prison was for the meanest of the mean, there were gang leaders in here, serial killers and child rapists. Some incompetent fool thought it was a brilliant idea to close the petty crime prisons and just merge them all here.

Kids got sent here for stupid little things like stealing some food from a market stall, drug dealing and writing graffiti in the local parks. You write some graffiti on a wall, you get locked up in here with the big boys who could and would eat you for breakfast.

They didn't know how to behave here and quickly became bitches. But some of the other inmates were rather dodgy. Simply looking at them would get them riled up.

Of course I didn't have a bitch, I didn't need one. I wasn't gay. And I didn't need to assert my dominance my shoving my cock inside some kid's small entrance.

Faggots.

There was one bitch in for now. He quickly became owned by the emerald green hedgehog. I don't know what he was in for or how long for, I honestly didn't care. I just made a mental note of how red his blood looked against his bleached fur. I shouldn't laugh, but sometimes you just can't help it.

While most kids will try not to get on your bad side, others just ask for it. Not saying they approach and ask you to butt fuck them there and then, but they piss you off in a way that is the only way to teach them.

And he barely lasted an hour before he looked wrongly at one of the most dangerous criminals in here.

He deserved it.


	2. Daily

**SpunkiSpirou: **Been doing a lot of research for this and there are a few differences between UK and US prisons so I have opted for a blend between the two countries. Enjoy.

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I spent most of my time in my cell, away from everyone else. They didn't interest me and if I was going to be bored I'd rather be bored alone than surrounded by complete morons. I was lucky, I had a cell all to myself. Some others weren't so lucky and had to share with another inmate, but there were others who went together like bread and butter and didn't mind sharing.

All cells had the same things, a toilet, a sink for washing your hands and brushing your teeth in and a desk for writing letters home, I didn't write any letters home I didn't have anyone to write to and even if I did, I doubt they would have been read. More than likely just thrown straight out like a piece of rubbish. The desk also housed a small kettle and a few cups, for when you wanted to make yourself some kind of hot beverage. And then there was the classic barred window like any prisons in the movies had. I could see out of mine, the view wasn't great, just a great big brick wall that surrounded the outside of the place. Finally was the beds. Single cells like mine just had the one bed, but doubles had bunk beds. The bed frames were made of metal and although originally screwed into the floor some inmates had pulled theirs up and moved them around. Of course they got punished for it, but the wardens weren't exactly rushing to get the handymen in to fix them. The mattresses were a step up from being a gym mat, more hard than sort. Pillows weren't much better but the plus was at least the duvets could keep you warm.

Not everyone needed a bitch for warmth.

There was a few things I did during my time, like seeing the prison therapist. It consisted of a few basic questions like how are you, are you well, what have you done today. I always answered fine to most of them. There wasn't much else to say. She was the second female that worked there and was relatively new, she'd only been here maybe the last couple of months. Just like the other working female she was kept away from the prisoners, in her own little therapists room away from all the inmates. I'm certain a bunch of them would quite happily jump her given the chance, but with everything here was secured and the option just wasn't available. Although if there was no security and she was jumped, I wondered exactly how long her nine lives would have lasted. I saw both of the females here, but my favourite was the nurse.

At the end of the therapist sessions I got tokens, they weren't given directly to me but were placed in what they called my prison bank account, which everyone had.

With these tokens you could go to commissary and use them for what they called high end snacks, other foods like instant noodles which you could make in your own cell, tea bags, writing utensils so you could write a letter home to your loved one. You could also purchase phone time, another thing that was pointless in my case, to phone your loved one. Some inmates would save up their tokens until they could purchase a full hour of talking to those on the outside.

I passed by the gym earlier today, nothing much going on in there. Sponge and Fake Face just got a bit creative and instead of using the designated gym weights or punch bag they were using the bitch.

The other female in here and in my life was the medication nurse. I maybe should have mentioned that before, yes we were the hardest of criminals but besides killing a few others here and there we also had abilities that set us apart from, well, normal folk you could say.

Sponge could run faster than sound, he had medication to put an end to that straight away. Otherwise he would have broke out of here a long time ago with Fake Face.

I was on my way to the medication suite and the hot nurse that gave them. She was called Rouge, and was she ever fit. Her breasts were like a pair of melons and she always had slap across her face. Too much was what a lot of other inmates would comment on, like she was just asking for it. That was maybe why she dispensed the medication from behind a bullet proof pane of glass. Everyone had a different time slot, mine was five, and we'd each go in there give our name, have a brief chat, be given the small pot of whatever pills we needed, swallow them and then leave.

Yeah I had a small round pink one, a long thin blue one, a split yellow and red one and then a green square one that matched up to Sponge.

I entered the room that day and proceeded to give her my name. She smiled when she saw me and began to rummage through the filing cabinet that stood behind her, I like to think I was her favourite inmate, she always seemed so happy to see me. If she did smile that much for the others I never saw it, and probably a good thing, if I caught anyone checking her out I know a few limbs would be getting removed.

She came back to the window with my file and began to read things from it to me, I was probably supposed to listen but I always found myself staring at those boobs of hers. Her mouth flapped a couple more times and then came the pot with the pills in it. I watched as she pulled cupboard doors open and pulled out various pill jars. First the pink one, then the blue one, then the split yellow and red one, then the green one and then when I thought she was going to pass it through she instead added another pill. It looked like a polo but it was purple. I must have given her an odd look because she laughed and told me not to look so worried it was just a health tablet they had begun giving out now.

I took her word for it, after all she was the doctor she knew what we all needed. She passed through the plastic cup of water we got with the pills. I began to take them, first the pink one, that was the easiest I'd had it so often I didn't need the water to swallow it down with anymore. The thin blue one and the split yellow and red one were the same size and shape so I always took those down together with a sip of water. Then the green one, which being square was a bit bigger than the first three so required more water to help flush it down with.

Then came the new one, in the bizarre shade of purple. She told me it was a chewable one and I didn't necessarily need the water. I stared at her as I held the purple pill in my hand. She told me not to worry and that it would taste good. I put it in my mouth and chewed down, it tasted of blackcurrants. Not my favourite flavour in the world but it was nice to taste something with flavour. All the other food in this place was so bland you'd forget what real food tasted like.

I swallowed the pill down and finished off the rest of the water before returning the empty vessels back to the nurse. She smiled as she took them back, told me the usual crap about getting enough sleep and doing regular exercise, then let me on my way.

I exited the room and made my way to the chow hall as the time was nearing towards the evening meal. Breakfast meals were collected from the chow hall after you'd eaten your evening meal as they were always eaten the following morning in your own cell. However lunch and evening meals were always eaten in the chow hall with everyone else. The occasional fight in there was a nice entertainment, of course the only fights that happened now were the long time inmates fighting for the kids. So as much as I liked watching them, part of me disagreed to it, but there was no point to speaking up about it. Speaking up indicated you wanted a piece of them, and I wasn't one for that so I had no reason to speak up.

I know about the stereotypical thinking towards prison food, that all we get is some porridge oats, a piece of bread and a cup of water. But you'd be wrong. We get a whole range of things including vegan and vegetarian meals, you didn't have to belong to either group to have those meals, as the prison had to supply them as a basic rule.

You choose your meals for the week on Sundays by signing your name on a sheet of paper and ticking a few boxes. For my meal that evening I had chosen minced beef lasagne, things like fresh fruit and vegetables are served separately, so you can choose whether or not to have them. I opted for some carrots and a small bunch of grapes before taking my usual spot at the back corner of the eating hall. We weren't allowed regular utensils like a fork, knife and spoon, in case some crazy loon tried to use them as a weapon. Instead we got these rather handy little things called sporks. They looked like spoons but had a jagged edge like a fork and to cut like a knife you just had to turn them onto one side. They were made from plastic, strong enough to eat with but not strong enough to use as a weapon against someone else. One guy tried once and failed, that was five minutes of evening entertainment.

We used to have plastic knives, but all it took was one inmate to use it incorrectly for the rest of us to have it confiscated too. It sucked, even more so since the particular inmate was no longer in here, you'd think they'd have allowed us to have them back.

Of course not.

I ate my meal in silence as I watched the other inmates coming in to collect and eat their meals. The carrots were good, not too soft but not too crunchy at the same time, just right in the middle of the two textures, the way I liked them. The lasagne itself was nice too, steam emitted from it when I had collected it, each layer fully cooked all the way through no chewy or uncooked parts. The more I thought about food and how it tasted the more I thought I should have been a chef. Or at the very least a food critic. Hmm. After I finished the main course I leaned back in my chair up against the wall, picking each grape from the stalk it clung to and tossing them into my mouth, watching everyone else around me. No one ever looked at me, they acted as though I was never there.

I was merely a shadow to them.

I finished the remainder of my meal and took the tray back to the front of the room, depositing it on the rack to be cleaned by the kitchen staff before selecting my breakfast pack for the next morning.

As breakfasts were eaten in our own cells we were able to pick up a small parcel with everything we needed in it. They included a breakfast cereal, usually porridge oats or some cornflakes, a small carton of milk, couple of tea bags, a few scoops of coffee in a container, some sugar in another container, three slices of white bread, and then two small packets one containing butter and the other containing jam. I selected one with cornflakes in it before heading back to my cell.

I entered my cell, placed my breakfast pack on the desk and sat down on my bed, pulling a worn book from a drawer beside me. The guards would be round soon enough to close and lock the cell doors. Occasionally at night you could hear the kids screaming, everyone who had been here long enough knew exactly why they were screaming, but no one ever did anything.

No one did anything.

I figured the kids thought if they screamed the guards would come running to their aid. Pfft. They didn't care about us. All they were concerned about was getting back home to their loved ones. We were locked in our cells for a reason. So we couldn't escape.

No one escaped from here.

There was only two ways out of here. The first was by serving your sentence, whether that was a couple of weeks to a couple of years to as many as a hundred years.

The second was by the injection.

The lethal injection.

I said it was a way out.

I never said it was a way out alive.


	3. Morning

**SpunkiSpirou**: Taken a while to write this out, hope you enjoy it and don't forget to leave me a review!

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Yeah you might have worked out the only way out for me is by lethal injection. I did some bad stuff when I was on the outside.

Real bad.

I'd been waiting here a long time, I don't know why they didn't just get it over with. Quick and painless. But they just left me in here, slowly rotting away like a sack of spuds long forgotten at the back of the food cupboard.

Others that came in for the injection were gone within days, it was evident that life sucked like that.

I removed my footwear and got into bed, propping my pillow as best I could so I could read a little before it was lights out. I turned the first page and began to read. I'd read this book many times already, if you asked me I could no doubt recite the entire book word for word without making a single mistake. You are probably thinking to yourself that I need to get a new book, well maybe I should, but tomorrow could be my day and that would be pointless buying a book that would never be read and tossed away when they clear out my things.

No one cares what happens to your possessions after you've gone. If family cared they would visit you, but they don't. I had a few possessions that no one but me were allowed to touch, first there was my book, then there was a framed portrait photo of someone I used to know. She wore a blue dress and had fair hair, she was beautiful. I don't like to talk about her now, all you need to know is she isn't suffering anymore.

I turned another page of my book and continued reading through it, I could hear other inmates retreating to their cells and I knew it was nearing lights out and lockdown. I finished reading the page I was on, folded along the already pre-folded corner, shut the book and put it back in the drawer. Almost right on cue the guard appeared at my cell door and slid it shut.

Even a goodnight was too much to say in this place.

I heard the key turn in the lock before he moved on down to the next cell. Hmph. I settled down in the bed, wrapping the duvet around me and pulling the pillow flat against the excuse of a mattress. The other cell doors were each shut and locked in turned until each one was completed. I listened as the night guards walked back along to the main entrance of the cell block, I heard the switch for the lights being flicked and watched as the entire floor instantly plunged into darkness.

Not complete darkness, there were no curtains so the moonlight was able to shine in through the window, illuminating the bars on the ground.

It seemed as though not even a minute passed before screams echoed from the cell across from mine. I knew who it was and even he knew no one was coming, so why was he bothering.

I turned over and pulled the covers up above my ears, it helped blocked most of the noise out. And soon I was sound asleep.

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Morning began when the guards came round and unlocked the cells, after striking them with their batons.

No such thing as a lie in here.

I stretched my arms out and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, swung my legs out and dipped my feet into my footwear. I yawned before getting up and making my way over to my desk to open my breakfast pack.

I'd picked out cornflakes this time, I picked up my bowl and opened the cornflakes into it before pouring the milk on top, added a little sugar on top as well before eating it. Wasn't bad. Possibly one of the few things in here that had any taste to it.

After that I went to make myself a cup of tea, I filled the kettle from the sink and turned it on. While I was waiting for it to heat up I got a mug out and put the remainder of the milk and a tea bag in. The kettle pinged to tell me it was finished and I poured the water in, swilled it around with a spoon and then removed the tea bag, tossing it into the toilet.

Whilst I waited for it to cool a little so I could drink it without burning the roof of my mouth off I made some toast. Why they gave us three slices instead of four was stupid. The toaster could only take two slices at a time, and if you just did one slice it would come out over done, also known as fucking burnt. I slid the slices inside and pulled a small metal blade out from behind my desk. We weren't allowed to have knives, not even the plastic ones as I've mentioned before, but that didn't stop us from making our own out of what we could find in here.

Take a toothbrush for example, snap the head off just right and you'll be left with a nice sharp point. Now you use a rough wall edge to shave that down you can make it sharper, or sharp enough to stab some bitch if you wanted what he had and he wasn't very forthcoming with just giving it up to you. Stupid little punks.

I had an actual metal blade though. I've never needed to stab someone with it, they all respect me enough to keep out of my damn way. Plus I needed it to spread my toast. If you got caught with these tools, they called them contraband, they would put you into solitary confinement. Those that had a bitch meant bad news, cause someone else could claim ownership of them and then they would have to fight to get them back again.

The toast popped out and I spread the slices with the butter and then with the jam, I ate them as I sipped away at my cooled mug of tea pondering over what I would do that day. Well, first plan of the day was to have a shower, then I guess maybe watch some TV in the entertainment room, go in the gym for a bit, wander around the yard outside for some fresh air, have lunch, repeat the same entertainment, have dinner, collect breakfast and return to my cell again.

I finished eating and drinking, cleared up my remaining edibles into the cupboard and put my dirty dishes into the sink with the tap left running on them. Hey I didn't pay the water bill here, wasn't a problem for me. The tap would remove the worst of the food from them. Same old, same old.

I picked up a towel, some shampoo and after changing my footwear for the shower-approved ones I made my way over to them. Apparently they only cared about health and safety when it came to the possibility of slipping and breaking your neck in the showers. Hmm. Guess that could be another way out.

Although I never let on, I had considered different modes of suicide to take. Considered, thought out but never attempted. As much as I wanted to get out of here and end my suffering from being kept here like some kind of purgatory waiting room customer, I just couldn't bring myself to commit suicide like that. I would much rather go down in a hail of bullets from a gun fight with the guards. Hmm. Needed a gun first.

I arrived at the showers to find plenty of other inmates in there already, they knew I'd entered and although they glanced at me they didn't jeer or throw anything in my direction, like they were known to do with younger inmates. Younger and inexperienced ones that didn't understand what the soap was for.

As I made my way down the aisle of showers, passing all the others, pothead was coming my way. Pothead the Porcupine. Classic name, I often wondered exactly who came up with it and wished it had been me. Maybe I could say it was me anyway, no one would challenge me over it anyway, they knew what they'd get for it.

Pothead was looking at the floor as he made his way across in my direction, he didn't even look up at me. I watched him as he grew nearer and nearer to me, before he jumped slightly seeing me in front of him.

I smirked as he began to jitter at me, apologising for not seeing me and that he would make it up to me, the usual things he would say. I saw the fearful look in his yellow eyes for a split second as I closed mine and moved around him towards the showers. I didn't have time for that.

I didn't have time to listen to others whining, moaning, complaining or anything else. My mood was the same this morning as it was every morning and throughout the day. I didn't give a rats ass about anyone else in here. All I wanted to do was the stuff I did, to get through the day and be away from everyone else that was in here.

I reached the cubicle I intended to use that morning, drew the curtain across the rail that was just above my waist, stripped out of my clothing and put it to one side where it wouldn't get wet and turned the shower on.

The luke warm water hit my body and ran down my fur, gently soaking it through in minutes. I hadn't even reached for my shampoo when someone dropped their soap and the morning entertainment began.


End file.
